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11/23/13

A Literary Award Pageant

Each year, literary awards are given to those writers who have
produced superb pieces of literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy,
mystery, poetry, and children’s books. Some, like the Nobel, are so huge
that people start speculating on the possible winner before the current
year’s winner has even attended the awards ceremony in Stockholm.
Others are awards for genre fiction, poetry, and translation.

We hear about these numerous awards during the year, but we mostly
focus on the PEOPLE who have won them. What about the TROPHIES, the
PLAQUES, the COINS?? Frankly, they’ve been ignored, and it’s time to
make it up to them. So here, for your viewing pleasure, is an award
pageant, where these tangible proofs of literary skill can finally have
their due.

Bram Stoker Awards: presented each year by the
Horror Writers’ Association for superior achievement in the horror
genre; past winners include Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King. (image source)

Edgar Award: presented by the Mystery Writers of
America for achievement in the mystery genre; previous winners include
Dennis Lehane and Tana French. (image source)

Franz Kafka Prize: given to the writer who’s work’s
“humanistic character and contribution to cultural, national, language
and religious tolerance, its existential, timeless character, its
generally human validity and its ability to hand over a testimony about
our times”; previous winners include Philip Roth and Haruki Murakami. (image source)

Hans Christian Andersen Award: the highest
international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of
children’s books, given by the International Board on Books for Young
People every other year; previous winners include Katherine Paterson and
Maria Teresa Andruetto. (image source)

PEN/Hemingway Award: a national literary honor given
to an author of a first book of fiction; previous winners
include Marilynne Robinson, Ha Jin, and Jhumpa Lahiri. (image source)

Patrick
Hemingway (center) and the winner, Kevin Powers (right)

Hugo Award: given each year at the World Science
Fiction Conference; past winners for best novel include Arthur C.
Clarke, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, and Orson Scott Card. (image source)

Man Booker Prize: a literary prize awarded each year
for the best original full-length novel, written in English, by a
citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or
Zimbabwe; previous winners include Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, and
Eleanor Catton. (image source) (Catton photo)

Eleanor
Catton won this year for THE LUMINARIES

National Book Award: currently given to one book
(author) annually in each of four categories: fiction, nonfiction,
poetry, and young people’s literature; past winners for fiction include
Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Franzen, and Louise Erdrich. (image source)

Nebula Award: given each year by the Science Fiction
and Fantasy Writers of America for the best science fiction or fantasy
fiction published in the United States during the previous year;
previous winners include Ursula K. Le Guin and Michael Chabon. (image source)

Neustadt International Prize for Literature: awarded
to an author for a body of work and often called the “American Nobel”
because of its record of 30 laureates, candidates or jurors who in 42
years have been awarded Nobel Prizes following their involvement with
the Neustadt Prize; previous winners include Gabriel García Márquez and
Rohinton Mistry. (image source)

Newbery Medal: awarded annually by the Association
for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library
Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution
to American literature for children; previous winners include Lois
Lowry, Beverly Cleary, and Scott O’Dell. (image source)

Nobel Prize in Literature: according to Alfred
Nobel’s will, the prize is to be given “to the person who shall have
produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an
ideal direction” from any country in the world; previous winners include
Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison. (image source 1) (image source 2)

(L-R)
Faulkner, Bellow, and Morrison receiving the Nobel Prize

Pulitzer Prize: given for distinguished fiction by
an American author, preferably dealing with American life; previous
fiction winners include Geraldine Brooks and Junot Diaz. (image source: wikipedia)

OTHER PRIZES OF NOTE THAT DON’T HAVE MEDALS/TROPHIES/OTHER COOL STUFF

Bollingen Prize: named after Carl Jung’s home in
Switzerland; awarded every two years for the best volume of poetry
published in those years or for a poet’s lifetime achievement in his or
her art; past winners include John Ashbery, Robert Creeley, Louise
Glück, Stanley Kunitz, W.S. Merwin, and Richard Wilbur.

O. Henry Award: an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit; previous winners include Sherman Alexie and Alice Munro. (Winners are published in a collection).